Reasons For Marketing
There are several reasons why you might consider hiring a YouTube video marketing company:
- Faster Growth: If you want to accelerate the growth of your YouTube channel.
- Lead Generation: If you have a successful business with a profitable funnel and want to generate more leads. Marketing can help you drive more people into that funnel and grow your revenue.
However, if you don’t have a clear path to revenue or are hoping to make money solely through YouTube advertising, marketing might not be the right approach for you.
Reasons Against Marketing
Consider these points against hiring a marketing company in certain situations:
- YouTube as Sole Business: Paying for advertising to grow a YouTube channel that solely relies on ad revenue is generally not effective. People don’t subscribe to ads.
John Crestani Story
A real-life example illustrates this point. John Crestani, an ads and affiliate marketing expert, invested heavily in paid advertising to grow his channel teaching affiliate marketing. While he gained 65,000 subscribers, the channel didn’t generate leads or engagement for his $6 million business. He was essentially paying for views and subscribers without organic growth.
After shifting to an organic content strategy focused on search and expert positioning (the “Leaf Strategy”), his channel grew to a quarter of a million subscribers in 12 months, generating significant leads and even $18,000 in ad revenue in the final month.
Are They Actually Marketing?
It’s crucial to differentiate between marketing and nurturing:
- Marketing: Getting in front of people who have never heard of you before.
- Nurturing: Engaging with people who already know, like, and follow you (e.g., subscribers, followers).
Many “social media marketing campaigns” are actually nurturing campaigns, providing content for existing audiences rather than reaching new ones.
Ads, Viral, or Search
True marketing happens in three main ways:
- Paid Advertising (Ads): Placing ads in front of new audiences. While effective for immediate reach, leads generated this way tend to be lower quality (“disruptive marketing”).
- Viral Content: Creating content that is shared widely, reaching new people. However, viral success often depends on entertainment value rather than targeted audience interest, leading to potentially low-quality leads.
- Search: People who have a question or problem search on platforms like Google and YouTube and find your content. This generates the highest quality leads as these individuals are actively seeking solutions related to your expertise.
Questions to Ask
When interviewing a YouTube video marketing company, ask pointed questions to understand their approach:
- Do they focus on nurturing or marketing?
- If they market, how do they do it? (Paid advertising, viral content, or search?)
- If they mention SEO, how does their SEO strategy specifically work? Be wary of outdated tactics.
Modern YouTube SEO emphasizes the strategy and content creation before posting. Tactics like link building, article marketing, blog commenting, and keyword stuffing in tags are no longer effective.
Ask for specifics on their tactics. If they only talk about optimizing videos and tags after posting, it’s a red flag.
Case Studies
Always ask for case studies. They should be able to show you:
- Where a client was initially.
- Their desired outcome.
- The specific strategy implemented.
- The resulting outcomes.
Many companies struggle to provide clear and concrete case studies.
If you need help with nurturing your existing audience, many companies can assist with content creation. However, if your goal is true marketing and reaching new audiences, ensure they have a proven track record in your desired marketing method (ads, viral, or search).
Red Flags
Watch out for these red flags when considering a YouTube marketing company:
- Never buy views. Paid views are often fake and can negatively impact the algorithm’s understanding of your audience.
- Do not pay for likes, subscribers, or comments. These metrics only matter if they are organic and reflect genuine engagement. Purchased engagement is meaningless.
Advertising
Advertising can be beneficial if you have a working sales funnel where paid leads convert into revenue. If it’s working, continue doing it while also building your organic presence.
However, do not mix organic and paid strategies on the same YouTube channel. The audiences and their expectations are different. Organic audiences seek genuine connection and dislike feeling sold to, while paid audiences are acquired through direct promotion. Combining these can slow down overall growth.
Focus on Organic Search
A powerful strategy is to focus on ranking your videos at the top of YouTube search. This involves understanding the right strategy and creating the right type of content to dominate your niche.
[Link to YouTube SEO Secret Strategy Video]
By focusing on search optimization, you can effectively market your channel and attract new viewers who are actively looking for the solutions you provide, ultimately generating valuable leads for your business.
